I know what you’re thinking. Months of absence and I manage to come back with a post about Robyn. Although maybe, just maybe, you missed the Robyn reference in the title and the above image?

Unlikely.

So yes, months without so much as a bleep (blog peep) and I return (triumphantly?) with a Robyn-related post. Sometimes when in need of inspiration one needs not turn to the new and exciting but the familiar and (frankly) fantastic. I turn to Robyn.

On this instance I spent the evening reliving the brilliance that is Robyn’s back catalog. If the Spice Girls were the soundtrack of my teens, Robyn was the soundtrack of my mid to late twenties. There are some songs that become amazing because they appear at a moment in your life when they perfectly capture your experience. For me, then there’s Robyn. Her back catalogue is like a tapestry of my own experience. I find it hard to express in writing just how important With Every Heartbeat was to me at a very low point in my life but thisevening I was thinking of a high (or I suppose low, depending on your outlook) moment that was my 30th birthday.

A brilliant night at Numbers was drawing to a close and the ever-accomodating DJ put on Call Your girlfriend to shut it down for the evening. I had literally been 30 for a little over two hours and as Robyn reached her transcendent climax in Call Your Girlfriend I hopped to the ground, mimicking (gracefully) the floor humping motion featured at [1:26] in the video. Just as I myself was really hitting my stride what did the DJ do but cut the music and turn up the house lights leaving me mid-hump on the floor.

So The Real Housewives of Vancouver started the other day. I have mixed emotions. I’m kinda drawn to it because: a. It’s Vancouver-based and I enjoy seeing my city in glorious HD; and b. Mary Zilba, who is one of the five housewives, was my customer at work and is delightful. The show is ridiculous. It’s very loosely termed “reality.” Realistically they take five society woman – who obviously don’t really know eachother from Eve – and put them into situations for them to fight. Mary Zilba is about the only likeable one on the show, she has the kind of Minogue-like naiveté about her. Amahzing. Christina’s alright too, if you can overlook the golddiggery, which actually appears more of a front for the cameras than anything.

The thing I don’t like about this show is not that it’s totally fake – I’m fine with that – it’s that they pretend it’s not fake rather than revelling in the ridiculousness of the situations they create. It’s a common problem with reality shows these days. I quite like Property Brothers but am driven to distraction every episode when without fail one of the potential homeowners comes out with “I don’t really know if I’m up for a renovation.” THEN WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU ON A SHOW WHOSE SOLE PURPOSE IS RENOVATIONS?!?!?! Seriously!

It’s like Ru Paul’s Drag Race, – I fucking love Ru Paul’s Drag Race. Drag Race never pretends it is anything but completely ridiculous. From catchphrases like “Don’t fuck it up,” and “Lipsync for your life” to competitions such as which queen can best make a straight man look like a pregnant woman. As noted by former fellon and my – and Ryan and Bobby’s – choice for Season 4’s Miss Congeniality Latrice Royale “Everybody makes mistakes but bitch when you get up you better look sickening.” Latrice speaks the truth. But Sharon Needles better win this bitch.

Parts of Ru Paul’s Drag Race have actually become part of the common vocabulary among my group of friends, particularly “cut to Raven.” Raven was a sickening season two queen who was cruelly robbed of the crown by eventual winner Tyra Sanchez. Anyway, in season 2 nary a humorous moment would pass without a quick cut to Raven saying something enormously cutting in one of those sit-down dialog bits so loved by reality television. She had a gift. And she deserved to win. She was ridiculous and the best kind of bitchy and she had more front that block of fucking houses; in short bitch was sickening.

Back to my main point though, reality tv is at it’s best when not hiding in artifice but revelling in it. Also Ru Paul’s Drag Race is amazing.

A while ago now Ryan, Bobby and I decided to rent a car and take a mini road trip in our further exploration of BC. Scanning a map we decided on Harrison Hot Springs for our brief sojourn. “Hurrah!” we thought as we packed our swim attire. “Soothing natural spring waters in the great outdoors!” we mused as we drove the 90 minutes to get there. “Why is the place even called Harrison Hot Springs?!?” we derided on the way back shortly thereafter.

You see, Harrison Hot Springs is a town that might sound like somewhere you would go looking to enjoy a natural outdoor spring but you would be sorely disappointed unless you had already booked yourself into the frankly exorbitantly priced local “Resort & Spa.” You see the only public access hot spring is INSIDE a dumpy building in the centre of town. So much for being at one with nature.

After a quick walk around town – local gems included the above spa motel and a beach shop named, for some reason, “Beach Potato” – we got in our mid-level sedan and headed back to town. Which is not to say that our day ended there. With our swim wear already in tow we made a bee-line – well, actually we drove all over the lower mainland as Ryan was navigating – for Hilcrest Pool which was absolutely brilliant owing mainly to the presence of a “swirl pool.” We swirled around in a circle on pool noodles for hours. Literally. It was fabulous. And much closer to home.

Continuing on from yesterday another video that Ryan, Bobby, and I rather enjoy watching and dancing along to is the mash-up of Adele’s Rumour Has It and Someone Like You from Glee. It is easily the performance on the year from Glee which has been a bit hit and miss musically this season. Not so here with The Troubletones firing on all cylinders giving us both sickening vocals and some emotional realness.

So one night Ryan and I were properly giving it to this video: shoulder pops, head tilts, pigeon strutting, the works. Needless to say we had been drinking, also that it was amazing. Toward the end we lined up Santana and Mercedes styles only to realize that we had an audience! A group of people celebrating the end of a long moving day – for they had replaced the awful, and heretofore unmentioned, balcony-as-storage-room people – had been watching our entire routine!

They were actually delightful and after a brief bout of stage fright for yours truly – from which Ryan, ever the performer it seems, did not suffer – we held our drinks aloft to them and cheersed across the chasm that is downtown life. We may never meet them face to face but we made some new friends that night.

There so many amazing things about living in Vancouver. Being honest, on a beautiful day like today I am led to distraction wondering why anyone would not want live here. One of the many amazing things about this city is the food. Forged from a combination of myriad cultures in a small space and an extraordinary amount of competition food in Vancouver is both amazing and ridiculously cheap.

The asparagus roll was new to me but I feel like I was in Escape To Witch Mountain and we were distant soul mates destined to find eachother. It made my life and I will definitely be going back for more.

Sometimes I find it hard to resist the urge to eat out at every meal. When it’s that inexpensive it becomes very hard to abstain. I totally understand how people who have money would rarely cook a meal when such delicious, fresh, reasonably-priced option are literally on there doorstep. I can see my neighbourhood sushi place – and I say neighbourhood, but there so many sushi places within a two block radius that it’s absurd, Yamato is just the best/cheapest option close at hand – from my apartment window. It literally takes more time to make my order than it does for me to get there. Amazing.

A little while ago I mentioned that it took a full six days (!) for my Mum’s Mother’s Day Card to arrive in Calgary from Vancouver, taking even longer than a card sent on the same day to England.

Some have since posited that this was perhaps an isolated incident.

Alas, it was not!

In fact, my Mum’s birthday card took a full 10 BUSINESS DAYS to arrive in Calgary from Vancouver! That’s TWO WEEKS! What’s going on at Canada Post? No wonder people have stopped using regular mail. Honestly, it shouldn’t take two weeks for a letter to go from Vancouver to Calgary. I think a week, at the most, is an acceptable amount of time. I’m really going to have to start thinking ahead for birthdays and occasions etc. because with my parents moving up to Fort McMurray there’s no telling how long some simple correspondence will take to arrive. If past experience is anything to go by it may end up having to be expressed there on a dog sled or similar.

Day two of the Olympics Jo-Ann and I again had to rise extremely early because we had booked a coach to whisk us off to the glorious slopes of Whistler for the day. We had to be waiting at the corner of Seymour and Nelson by 6:45am which was rather arduous being honest, but we were there by 6:40am each with a piping hot cup of coffee (and bells on, obviously). We gathered on our arrival – from the general talk of the huddled snowboarders – that the 6:15am bus had yet to arrive so our bus was sure to be late. This caused a few of the lady snowboarders to lose their shit.

Gone is my notion of lady snowboarders as peaceful hippies, happily easing their way down a mountain to a bong-filled evening of chillaxing and heavy petting with the equally stoned boy snowboarders. AH HELL NO! These bitches were raging because their bus was a little late. One girl in particular was practically having a seizure in anger. Seriously! Calm that shit down girls. Jo-Ann and I had the rather enviable position of being – perhaps for the first time our lives – the most laid back people in a group.

To be very clear this is not a regular occurrence. As duo, I cannot imagine a pair of people less naturally at ease. AND WE CHILLED THE SHIT OUT OF THOSE BITCHES!

Anyway, we quickly arrived in Whistler – albeit after a rather unfortunate coach-sickness incident – and first things first we find a bathroom at the Fairmont. And who should Jo-Ann run into in the loo? Cindy Crawford, that’s who! Then she obviously came running out after Cindy to tell me as Cindy Crawford, Randy Gerber and the kids wandered past us through the lobby. A rather odd start to the day, especially because I think we were briefly tailed by hotel security. I’m still not entirely sure what they thought we were going to do short of yell “Oh my God it’s that woman who used to be famous and now is friends with George Clooney and looks a bit like Elisabetta Canalis!”

After this brief dalliance with the rich and famous it was off to the town centre where we discovered that Whistler is a rather lovely, if expensive, little town. I especially love that it is really geared towards pedestrians; the whole town is situated around walking areas which is lovely. Needless to say Jo-Ann and I managed to quickly find an Irish pub and quaff a few pints back over lunch. Fantastic.

After lunch we hopped a gondola up the mountain to hit the sliding centre for some luging. I feel compelled to point out here that the Sliding Centre was halfway up Whistler mountain but was not situated directly adjacent to the gondola. Rather you had to wander across the – somewhat melted and quite slushy – ski hill with turquoise be-jacketed volunteers yelling encouragement at you. Actually, there was a rather hot volunteer that neither Jo-Ann or myself really minded being yelled at by but that’s beside the point. Security was quite intense and almost identical to that at the airport except that the people operating it were friendly and not grumpy beyond all sense of human decency. It was a strange but enjoyable difference.

Despite seeming like it was just sort of dropped on the side of the mountain the Sliding Centre was actually kind of great. We quickly discovered little kiosks selling beer and subsequently discovered that you could drink ANYWHERE ON THE COURSE. No crappy beer gardens here friends. IT WAS AMAZING.

Also we found a huge amount of portoloos.

And there were these little warming tents because it was sleety and a bit cold so after exploring the luge track a little – it was all uphill and bloody hard work actually – we set up shop in a warming tent and proceeded to knock a few back. Lovely. As the time came for the event to begin we set ourselves up near the end of the track so we could watch both the big video screen and the sliders de-luging – we had discovered earlier on that watching any single point on the track was a bit of a no-hoper as you got more whiplash than anything trying to watch the luge go by. It was a really great afternoon and we ended up being in the background of the TV coverage as you may have seen on my Facebook. We were actually set up right next to one of the American sliders’ friends and family who managed to muscle their way onto the screen quite often.

Anyway, as it started to get a bit dark we headed back down the mountain as Trevor had made us rather extravagant dinner reservations at Araxi (of Hell’s Kitchen fame). The trip back across the mountain to the gondola actually managed to be funnier on the way back if that’s at all possible as it was now dark and there were more people, including families.

So Jo-Ann and I are gripping eachother for dear life as we’re sinking ankle deep into the slushy mountain. We are in fits just trying to stay vertical as hundreds of people around us are slipping and sliding when what do we see but a parent leading their poor toddler through the barely standing masses. This wouldn’t normally be that funny except said parent failed to notice that their child had in fact fallen over and was therefore just dragging said child across the wet snow. AMAZING. I literally could not stop laughing. As we loaded back into the gondola I mused to Jo-Ann that after almost a decade of planning this was the best they could come up with.

Once back on solid ground we hurried over to Araxi for a gourmet meal that did not disappoint. It really was delicious beyond all sense of necessity. I loved every bite. Jo-Ann had the Mushroom Risotto and I had the Pork Selection which included pork belly, smoked pork tenderloin, and pork cheek ravioli. AMAZING. We also split a beet salad to start and had a delicious poached pear desert. Most importantly though we were first served a celeriac foam based amuse bouche that was EPIC. We both loved it.

After our amazing dinner we realised we were running a little behind but also that we hadn’t visited Pride House so we did a run-through visit to the naked hockey player statue and grabbed a few condom and lube packets before racing to our bus (on full stomachs – rather ill-advised). Needless to say, we made our bus and spent the ride home with full on giggles after a such a long and event-filled day. It really was a properly amazing day and one which I will not soon forget.

I flew back from Calgary to Vancouver yesterday which was quite sad as I missed St. Patrick’s Day in Alberta, and my Mum was rather upset (although her tears did get her out of paying for parking at the airport, which is a significant parkade win).

Anyway, they have personal seatback TVs on Westjet and, when they’re working, you have a full selection of channels from which to choose your in-flight entertainment. At first I just watched the news because I had missed Jeopardy(!) and Coronation Street but then a dilemma arose at 6pm. I wanted to watch The View – which as many of you are already aware is my quite guilty pleasure – but was far too embarrassed to be caught watching The View in public. There was also Law and Order: SVU but I knew that I wouldn’t make it through the whole hour, and while that’s sometimes okay if you’re watching the last half of the show, I decided that watching the build-up without the conclusion would just be annoying. I ended up plumping for some home selling show on HGTV which I decided was still marginally judgement-worthy, but definitely less so than The View.

Being crammed together with complete strangers is always a fascinating sociological experience and as I checking out what everyone else is watching on their seatback TVs I also noticed a strange trend when the drinks cart came scurrying by: TOMATO JUICE. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone order a tomato juice at a restaurant or bar before (other that in a Caesar or Bloody Mary) but it seems as if everyone glugging back juiced tomatoes at 39,000 feet. I wonder if it’s just habit; like you get into having it when you fly and it becomes like a treat associated with air travel? Or maybe everyone is sitting at home on a Saturday morning smugly drinking tomato juice while I’m at home bleary-eyed and unaware?
Hmmm….

Think back if you will to three weeks ago when the Vancouver Olympics had yet to officially open and the world was waiting with bated breath as the city laid it’s final preparations for the greatest party it had ever held. That morning you could find Arnold Schwarzenegger running an Olympic torch through Stanley Park and Jo-Ann and I rushing out of the house as not to miss the torch running up the street past my apartment.

Needless to say we were not disappointed. The flame passed us approximately 30 minutes before we were stuffing our faces at Denny’s up the road and was actually – despite my breakfast-related mocking – quite a lovely and touching experience. This flame travelled across this great land of ours, passed from person to person, touching Canadians from coast to coast. Despite it’s dodgy origins – aka Hitler – it really is a fantastic tradition.

So after our delicious breakfast – I had a Scrambler, not as you might be expecting, a SLAM or SLAMwich – I was itching to get over the zip line and we had thought, rather naively, that the queue on the first day wouldn’t be that bad. Upon arriving at Robson Square we discovered a line 5 hours long to heave our bodies across downtown.

QUICK SIDENOTE: Our first experience of the zip line had been wandering up Robson Street towards the square the night before. I had questioned at the time, “where’s the zip-line?” at which point, right no cue, we heard screaming a someone went flying right through our field of vision on the zip line. AMAZING!

Obviously, we decided to stay in the line and six hours, many panics, and a life-affirming hug later, we were safe and sound on the ground at the other side. I’ve attached a video below to demonstrate the sheer AMAZINGness of the zip line.

AMAZING!

Anyway, our feet now firmly on the ground it was obviously time to find a bar! We headed to The Speakeasy on Davie (a regular theme of the forthcoming Olympics posts) and proceeded to drink a lot while enjoying what was perhaps the most entertaining Opening Ceremonies the world has ever seen – cauldron malfunction aside.

The beginning of the show was all about the hotness of First Nation Wolf Man who was SEX ON LEGS.

After we’d stopped drooling we got down to the important business of judging the countries on their relative attractiveness and fashion sense. It all started quite well with Albania.

But then all went tits up quite quickly with Austria and Bahamas, respectively.

They were awful but worst dressed was easily Germany whose athletes had these disastrous blue and pink vests that just said TEAM across the chest. Crap. The whole parade got an A for hotness though. It was like the countries were trying to out-hot eachother. No wonder the Olympic Village ran out of condoms!

Best dressed by a mile was Azerbaijan with this killer emsemble of multi-coloured pants and rocking hat. I WANT THIS OUTFIT.

After all that the cultural portion was actually entertaining for once – another record for Canada to go along with those 14 gold medals – including the words-cannot-describe-the-level-of-amazingness-this-reached-she-hit-the-money-note performance by KD Land which was, in case it isn’t already smack-you-round-the-face-with-a-dead-cat obvious, AMAZING beyond reproach.

BITCH S’IL VOUS PLAIS! It was plenty French. Stop fucking complaining French people. There was some Quebec stuff in the cultural portion, lots of French speaking – even rather regrettably by John Furlong, – and French performers including Garou. QUEBEC IS ONLY ONE PROVINCE NOT HALF OF THE COUNTRY’S CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE. I’m all for the protection of French culture but not at the expense of the rest of the country.

Anyway, it was a near perfect ceremony, aside from the rather obvious cauldron malfunction. Jo-Ann and I loved it and so did the crowd at our new favourite bar, The Speakeasy.

Our Olympics was off to a flying start.

Quick sidenote #2: The image at the top of this post is from the AMAZING Olympics intro used by the BBC for their Vancouver coverage and I implore you to check it out here if you haven’t already had the pleasure. DO IT.

So I’m at work thisafternoon and I was just glancing out the window a moment ago when I saw a women walking up the street neath an umbrella. This is not an unusual occurance in Vancouver except that IT’S NOT RAINING. Neither has it been raining. Nor is it about to rain. It’s not even super bright out or anything perchance necessitating a parasol. There was literally no reason I could fathom to be walking with an open umbrella on a day like today. It took every fibre of my being not to yell out the door “IT’S NOT RAINING!”